The friend of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye that sparked the scandal that drove Park from office was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Choi Soon-sil was convicted of receiving bribes from South Korean conglomerates like Samsung. The chairman of another conglomerate, Lotte Group, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in the same case.

Donald Trump declined to re-impose sanctions on Iran, but warned this is the last time he’ll do that unless the nuclear deal is renegotiated to his satisfaction. Nonetheless the Treasury Department imposed targeted sanctions on 14 Iranian entities and individuals.

Back in the day, Google famously adopted the corporate motto, “Don’t be evil.” It hasn’t turned out so well.

The problem is that their motto didn’t define what constitutes evil, so it left an opening for narrow-minded zealots to commandeer company resources in a witch hunt against whatever they define as the forces of wickedness. That’s what has happened at Google, which has adopted a corporate culture of quasi-totalitarian ideological uniformity that it is now starting to impose on everyone who uses its services. Which is, let’s face it, pretty much everyone. For now.

Put simply, the Russian leader wants the U.S. out of Syria in order to advance his interests and those of his partners. Putin knows that while the U.S. retains a military presence in eastern and northern Syria, the Russians, Iranians, Turks, and Assad won't be able to turn Syria into an artery of imperialism and sectarian terrorism.

Fortunately, Secretary of Defense James Mattis recognizes the reciprocal utility of a continued U.S. presence and President Trump seems to support him.

Still, if Putin believes that killing a few Americans with an "accidental" air strike would not meet retaliation and would help push the U.S. out of Syria, he'll do just that.

Surveillance records are said to show Metin Külünk, a close friend of Erdogan, giving money to "Osmanen Germania" for the purposes of buying weapons in June 2016. Police officials observed Külünk handing envelopes of money to a senior leader of the gang — who has since been arrested. At the same time, the gang was being directed to cause disturbances as the German Parliament considered a resolution condemning the early-20th Century Armenian Genocide by Turkey. The resolution passed.

Later:

According to German authorities, the "Osmanen Germania" biker gang is composed of 2,500 members and 40 chapters, mostly in the North Rhine-Westphalia.

Interior Minister for North Rhine-Westphalia Herbert Reul submitted a report to Parliament in October stating that "Osmanen Germania" was operating as a "counter-terrorism" unit of the MIT Turkish intelligence agency, and harassing Erdogan's perceived enemies in Germany.

News of the scuffle dominated South Korean media coverage of Moon’s four-day state visit to China, during which the president is expected to discuss economic ties and tensions with North Korea with his counterpart Xi Jinping.

Activists from Tehreek-e-Labaik have blocked the main road into the capital for the past two weeks in protest after blaming the law minister Zahid Hamid for changing the wording in an electoral oath proclaiming Mohammad to be the last prophet of Islam from “I solemnly swear” to “I believe”, a change the party says amounts to blasphemy.

The government blamed the change on a clerical error and swiftly changed the language back.

An awkward alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens would allow Chancellor Angela Merkel to govern for a fourth term after her conservatives lost votes in September’s election to the far right.

However the three-way combination is untested at national level. With negotiations running deep into overtime, leaders are urging each other to make painful compromises in order to bind parties that are ideologically far apart into a stable government for Europe’s largest economy.